Rotherham Titans breathed a huge sigh of relief when with the final kick of the game Lloyd Hayes sealed a 48-46 victory for the home side over a very energetic Bournville outfit.
The victory keeps Titans unbeaten in Nat 2 after 3 games, but they will need to tighten up defensively for their away trip to Blaydon next week.
On a glorious sun-soaked afternoon at Clifton Lane the supporters will remember this one for some time, as Rotherham came out on top in this 13 try bonanza; although at no stage could either side have been confident they would be victorious, as the lead changed hands five times.
Rotherham made the brighter start and inside the opening 15 minutes crossed the whitewash twice through packmen Zak Poole and Matt Challinor, with the opposition 10, Mitch McGahan, slotting over a 3-pointer in between, to leave Roth 10-3 to the good.
However, the visitors bounced back with gusto as they blitzed Rotherham with pace and power to run in 3 converted tries and a penalty in a devastating 15-minutes spell, to Roth’s sole score of a Harry Dunne converted try, to leave the scores at 27-17 to the ‘Chocos’.
Although not at their best on this balmy afternoon, Titans have a spirited bunch of boys who never want to be outdone. So as expected, back they came to reduce the arrears 4 minutes before the break when Matt Challinor crashed over for his second score of the match. Joe Carlisle tagged on the extras to send in the home side trailing 27-24 at half time.
The second period was every bit as frenetic as the first and when Bournville winger Ollie Dawkins ran in to score a converted try after just 2 minutes, to extend the visitors lead to 32-24, the frown lines on Titans faces deepened.
Yet again however the Lane men powered back!
This time Matti Williams and Zak Poole scored almost identical tries on 45 and 50 minutes respectively, through driving mauls from line outs inside the Bournville 22, with Lloyd Hayes also chipping in with two successful penalties to take Roth into a 40-32 lead.
But again, back the Birmingham based side came to narrow the gap to a single point on 70 minutes when replacement back Mikey Ho dashed through to score, for the impressive McGahan to convert.
Six minutes from time Rotherham probably thought they’d done enough to take the spoils when hooker Harry Newborn dotted down from the tail of a maul to give his side its seventh try of the game to go 45-39 ahead.
Now it was just a case of closing out the game!
But this game didn’t want to be closed out and 3 minutes into injury time it appeared as if the visitors had snatched the win when tighthead prop Ryan Smeilus crashed over for the nerveless McGahan to convert and put his side 46-45 up.
However, in the final play of this most remarkable of games Rotherham were awarded a penalty at a scrum and up stepped Lloyd Hayes in the 86th minute to tee up his shot. The nervy and stony silence which surrounded the ground was boisterously broken by the roar of the shed, as Hayes’ effort sailed through the posts to give Roth the most dramatic of victories.
Bournville would have been bitterly disappointed to have missed out on the win and they deserve a huge amount of credit for their part in making this game one of the most memorable in recent times at Clifton Lane.
Speaking after the game a shell-shocked Steve Salvin reflected:
“I think we have to celebrate the result because we have just gained 5 points, but we can’t be too pleased with our overall performance because we’ve just conceded 46 points and we were a long way off where we need to be.
“If that’s a benchmark of where we are in terms of our performance we need to be concerned, because we’ll not get away with that week in and week out and we will end up on the wrong end of the score on a regular basis.
“But we’ll review what we did well and what we didn’t and we’ll work hard as a group to improve and put things right for our next game again Blaydon.”
Referee: Peter Caunt
Attendance: 587
Yellow Card: Poole & Cooke (Titans), Burgoyne & Burrows (Bournville)
Titans: Poole (2T), Challinor (2T), Dunne (T), M. Williams (T), Newborn (T), Carlisle (2C), Hayes (3P)
Bournville: Dawson (T), Burrows (T), Burgoyne (T), Dawkins (T), Ho (T), Smeilus (T), McGahan (5C, 2P)
Titans: 15 Cameron McDonald, 14 Connor Field, 13 Lloyd Hayes, 12 Harry Dunne, 11 Jamie Cooke, 10 Joe Carlisle (Boxhall 64), 9 Sam Pocklington, 1 Charlie Capps (Pleasants 58), 2 Harry Newborn, 3 Colin Quigley (Stout 50), 4 Matt Challinor (Entressengle 80), 5 Matt Smith, 6 Theo Nwosu-Hope 7 Matti Williams (H. Williams 54), 8 Zak Poole (Capt.).
Replacements: 16 Francis Entressengle, 17 Alex Pleasants, 18 Rikki Stout, 19 Harry Williams, 20 Sam Boxhall.
Bournville: 15 Owen Williams, 14 Tom Burrows, 13 Mark Coulson, 12 Sam Wilson, 11 Ollie Dawkins, 10 Mitch McGahan, 9 Ben Tibbetts, 1 James Burgoyne, 2 Zane Raimondi, 3 Ryan Smeilus, 4 Callum Thompson, 5 Harry Dawson, 6 Sam Monteiri, 7 Ashley Scriven, 8 Umraan Jadwat.
Replacements: 16 Archie McArthur, 17 Jonjo Fanning, 18 Fynlay Brown, 19 Tom Vickers, 20 Mikey Ho.
Photo courtesy of Steve Mettam